Erebus Risen (Through Darkness Book II)

Chapter One: The Floors of Memory

Chapter One

The Floors of Memory

Year 7056, 20th day of the 4th Caelum month

Along the reaches of the street

Held in a lunar synthesis,

Whispering lunar incantations

Dissolve the floors of memory.

Rhapsody on a Windy Night, T.S Eliot

Seth opened his eyes. It was cold and dark, so dark. His head was aching. He tried to sit up.

Pain.

A searing pain shot through his stomach and he collapsed back onto the blankets. They were coarse and grey. He was on some kind of bed. After the blinding white light behind his eyes had subsided, he once again tried to raise himself. So weak.

That's when he looked down. The blankets had fallen to his waist revealing his bare upper body. Sweat clung to his skin. But what drew his eyes was the thick bandage running right around his stomach. The yellowed bandages were stained with dried blood.

He was shivering.

But then he saw it. Sticking out of the inside of his left arm was a thin tube. His heart lurched as he fought the urge to retch. He was breathing faster now, icy panic burning the nerves all over his body.

Seth erupted from the bed, ripping the needle from his arm, fists clenched, eyes wide. He was standing in the middle of a small room, the walls silver and dirty, a low shelf in one corner. The round door was shut.

That's when he realised he was naked.

He spotted the small pile of clothes in the corner of the room almost immediately. The metal floor was freezing. He reached down, lifting the first black garment into the air. Trousers, but there were dark stains encrusted into the material. Blood. It looked as though someone had tried to scrub the marks off, but the dark residue seemed ingrained into the very thread itself. Nevertheless, he quickly pulled them on.

There was a muffled bang from somewhere behind him.

Seth whirled round, fists clenched. The wheel on the door remained motionless. Slowly, barely taking a breath, he edged over to the wall, running one hand along the top of the ledge. He didn't take his eyes off the door. His fingers enclosed around something cold and thin. It took him half a second to work out what it was as he glanced down. Some sort of surgical scalpel.

And the wheel began to turn.

He pressed his back to the adjacent wall, holding the weapon close, teeth gritted, heart burning with an inexplicable anger.

The door swung open.

The person entered slowly, obscured. Seth held his breath, head pounding.

There was a sharp intake of breath as the intruder realised the room was empty. Four slender fingers curled round the edge of the thick door as the person prepared to look behind it.

And that's when he moved.

Seth came surging from his hiding place faster than the intruder could even turn their head. He threw one strong arm around their neck from behind, pressing the point of the scalpel to their throat, and locking his other arm in a vice around their stomach.